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NASA's Mission Control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston will beam the Super Bowl XLVII showdown between the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens live to the International Space Station so its astronaut crew can watch the big game along with every other football fan on Earth. The space station is currently home to two American astronauts (commander Kevin Ford and flight engineer Tom Marshburn), Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and Russian cosmonauts Evgeny Tarelkin, Oleg Novitskiy and Roman Romanenko. Together they make up the station's Expedition 34 team. [Astronaut's Amazing Photos of Earth from Space] Whether the space...

COMPTON (CBSLA.com) — Community leaders held a rally against hate crimes outside Compton City Hall Saturday in the wake of a Latino gang’s attack on an African-American teen boy. They were joined by a passionate crowd of Hispanic and African-American residents who stood together in an act of unity. “It doesn’t represent the whole 100,000 people that live in Compton. There’s a lot of Hispanics and a lot of blacks and we live together, we know how to live together,” Compton youth minister Eddie Arellano said of the hate crime. The Los Angeles County sheriff’s Department says the attack occurred...

OK sorry for the rant, but here goes. We are running a trade deficit which is unacceptably high. We need to make things in America, yet we import everything from everywhere else.

Guns, Mental Illness and Newtown There were 18 random mass shootings in the 1980s, 54 in the 1990s, and 87 in the 2000s. By DAVID KOPEL Has the rate of random mass shootings in the United States increased? Over the past 30 years, the answer is definitely yes. It is also true that the total U.S. homicide rate has fallen by over half since 1980, and the gun homicide rate has fallen along with it. Today, Americans are safer from violent crime, including gun homicide, than they have been at any time since the mid-1960s. Mass shootings, defined as four...

On the first day of Black history month, policy experts analyzed the current economic state of Black Americans during a summit at Howard University. One featured participant said President Obama, “does not deserve a pass anymore” regarding confronting Black issues head on and asked that the President “summon his courage” and “find his voice” on economic inequality in America. **SNIP** There has been discussion on what some refer to as a “cone of silence” over the Obama presidency regarding issues dealing with race and racial disparities in America. The Washington Monthly magazine featured Obama and race on their front cover...

In this I-Team report, Chicago's rising murder rate in a new context, how the numbers of shooting deaths compare to the city's most notorious crime era, the one that has tarnished Chicago's reputation around the world for a century. The surprising stats show the city is worse off now in the category of murder than at the height of the era that has driven Chicago's reputation for almost a century, Capone's "gangland" Chicago. Let's compare two months: January 1929, leading up to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, and last month, January 2013. Forty-two people were killed in Chicago last month,...

The decidedly secularist Sports Illustrated – evidenced by the busty swimsuit models it teasingly features on the home page of its web site (alongside the latest sports news, which is what “SI” is supposed to be about) – thought the occasion of the Super Bowl would be the perfect time to weigh in on the subject of Christianity and football. The cover of its February 4 issue, still available on newsstands, has a picture of Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, under the headline: “Does God Care Who Wins the Super Bowl?” In the cover shot, Lewis is up to his...

Stephen Lynch, the Irish Catholic congressman out of South Boston now running for U.S. Senate, calls himself a pro-life Democrat and gets the “anti-choice” moniker from abortion rights groups.

It looks like unionized Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents are starting to make some noise against the White House and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka about being shut out of talks involving immigration reform. They expressed concern about how such reform would affect federal agents, specifically those that are in the Border Patrol and work along the United States/Mexico border. Yahoo News reports,Unions “did have at one point some differences” on the issue, but “the entire labor movement is entirely behind this now,” Trumka said. “We’ll be at the table the whole time this thing is being developed to make sure...

Did you read the story home prices are up due to falling inventory? Case-Shiller just reported home prices were up in their 20 city index 5.5% in November all the way back to 2003 levels. Regarding these price increases one must put them into perspective. As reported at the BusinessInsider, Quinn Eddins at RadarLogic argue the recent rise in home prices reflects the weakness in 2011 home prices more than the strength of 2012 home prices. I concur. The reason for prices rising? According to the WSJ: “Economists see the report as a sign of the housing market gaining strength....

Memo to the President:  In case just for a moment you really do wonder why businesses are not expanding, why their anxiety level is high, why the sense of uncertainty continues 43 months after the economic recovery supposedly began…just look in the mirror.  Not just for another opportunity for self-adoration, but for the root cause of our economic stagnation. According to results of a newly released Gallup poll, the top five concerns of small business owners are healthcare costs, taxes, energy prices, regulation, and the debt ceiling – all that have increased significantly under the Obama administration.  Worse, if the...

In celebration of its 100th birthday, the bad old days have returned to Grand Central Terminal. Droves of homeless people are flooding the landmark again — even as workers prepared for last week’s centennial celebration. On a windy Wednesday, The Post spotted at least 40 hobos in search of free eats and a warm place to flop. “It’s nauseating,” said Yvette Molina, a Tarrytown resident, who was lunching in the concourse. “It’s really disgusting. It makes you lose your appetite.” In scenes reminiscent of the 1980s, one man picked through the garbage, rewarding himself with a half-eaten slice of pizza...

Dear Mr. Obama, This week Hadiya Pendleton was shot and murdered in Chicago just days after performing with high school marching band at your second inauguration. She was a majorette in addition to playing volleyball and being an honor student at King College Prep High School. My plea to you is you attend her funeral. My plea is that after the funeral you address the entire nation in prime time and discuss an epidemic that's eroding our nation and destroying millions of dreams. That is the real epidemic of violence in black communities There is no better example than your...

Professional football is the most popular spectator sport in America, which is one reason the Super Bowl is expected to draw 110 million viewers. With its famous athletes, storied franchises and lucrative TV contracts, it's an industry whose future appears limitless. But football has a problem: the specter of mass brain damage among current and former players. So far, the steady trickle of disturbing revelations has had no apparent effect on ticket sales or TV ratings. What it has done, though, is more ominous: It has invited lawsuits. If football falls into decline, it may not be the result...

Surprised they didn't opt for the Inquisition analogy . . . On Chris Hayes's MSNBC show this morning, Ali Gharib, editor of the "Open Zion" blog at the Daily Beast, described the questioning of Chuck Hagel at his Senate confirmation hearing as "a Republican purge" and a "Maoist public shaming." Michael Hastings of the Rolling Stone begged to differ, finding it more reminiscent of "Stalin." View the video here.

Over half of Harvard University students caught in a wide-ranging cheating scandal in an "Intro to Congress" course have reportedly had to withdraw from the Ivy League school. According to The Boston Globe, the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences told the Harvard community in an email that more than half of the students brought before the school's Administration Board in the fall were required to withdraw for some period of time. Of the students not required to withdraw, roughly half were placed on disciplinary probation, while the rest received no punishment and had their cases dismissed. While...

The shadowy tipster who made explosive allegations involving U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and underage prostitutes in the Dominican Republic named names. He gave descriptions of the women, and in some cases, phone numbers and addresses. Despite those details, the women are nowhere to be found. A week after the claims made headlines in the United States and on this Caribbean island, the alleged prostitutes have disappeared. An attorney who once represented two of the women said he hadn’t spoken to them in months, and then stopped returning phone calls himself. A two-bedroom apartment where some of the alleged liaisons took...

I’m not a big gun owner and I’m not part of the gun culture. So why, then, do I frequently post about the issue of gun control? Mostly because I believe in freedom and the Constitution.But I also appreciate facts and analysis and I know that law-abiding citizens are safer and criminals face greater obstacles when good people have the right of self defense.Last but not least, I think there’s a non-trivial possibility that the United States will suffer some sort of social chaos and/or breakdown of law and order because of the damage caused by reckless fiscal and monetary...

The following advertisement is recruiting "Progressive Activists" on Craig's List. Make a Difference this Year. Now Hiring for Campaign Positions! It may be a New Year, but we still have a lot of work to do. What's on your list of resolutions for 2013? __ Expand Marriage Equality __ Stand up for Constitutional Rights __ Protect Reproductive Freedoms and Healthcare __ Defend the Environment __ Run a campaign office to work for progressive change Since 2003 Grassroots Campaigns Inc. has been running face-to-face outreach campaigns for groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, the Sierra Club and Oxfam America. Once...

Pro-regime Syrian newspaper Al Diyar reported Friday that the army has loaded four Scud missiles, each with an explosive head of 500 kilograms, and is ready to strike Israel. The newspaper also stated that the Syrian army command held a meeting Thursday evening to discuss a response to Israel, including striking research centers in Tel Aviv. Mohammed Dirar Jammu, head of political and international relations at the World Organization of Arab expatriates, said to pro-Syrian regime TV channel Alakhbarya that "the Syrian military response to the Israeli bombing of the research center, in Damascus, will be earthshaking and staggering to...